Cd662

I've read a lot of threads in the reloading section on 38 Special for 125 PF. I have experienced somewhat inconsistent results with multiple types of powder, on average, a 40 - 50 foot per second spread (with spikes in either direction). Is this something that's simply typical for this round? Does matching headstamp brass or a different crimp combat this issue? I consider myself a shooter, not a handloader, so perhaps I am doing something wrong here. I've used two different types of chronographs and a load that should easily make minor (4.9 VW N320 with Berry's 158 at 1.500") has an uncomfortable amount of shots going subminor for me. If anyone has experience with this powder or any general suggestions, I'd appreciate it. Shooting these out of a 6 inch barrel. The loads are accurate (hit plates at 15 yards), but I need more juice. I have some magnum primers as well.

That looks like an awesome gun, Mr. Ortbach. I was in your squad at the S&W IDPA Indoor Nationals. Hope to see you again sometime.

I agree on trying it out beforehand. A comfortable sweep is important. These look like they could be a little tight. Not to thread derail but: "What's next, bag your gun between stages so you aren't carrying around an unnecessary couple of pounds? I like to pretend I am CCW and keep my gun under concealment. Kind of in the Spririt Of The Game and an effort to Do Right." Are you insinuating that anyone who removes their vest while participating in IDPA should be issued an FTDR? I assume you conceal carry. In an effort to be more comfortable in a situation where it is appropriate, have you never removed your cover garment? That's interesting.

A competitior downloading a 40 or 45 but having it make the power floor is within the rules. Your asessment of "service type" ammunition is very subjective. The whole point of the power floor system is to have a discernable manner of objectively deciding what ammo is OK to use and what is not. Should we ban everyone in SSR division right now for shooting 105 PF instead of 357 Magnum hollowpoints? I don't understand why people want to give an FTDR for everything.

Too bad you guys are no where near me, I'd love to mix my two hobbies together. Hyperball is a lot of fun, very "old school"!

As someone stated, if you like the K-Frame, there are plenty of options for IDPA but the 14 is not one of them due to the barrel length. I don't know anyone who shoots +P or +P+ 38 Special to make major power factor for USPSA. I agree with Brian that moonclips are the way to go - I shoot USPSA for practice with speedloaders and 38 at minor power factor. I'm not really an expert yet on all of the hit factor calculations but there's less wiggle room on a standard single stack array (one target of 2 charlies will already eat up 2 points) and ejecting individual cases and then reloading individual bullets takes longer and is riskier. I've only had a case under the extractor star once, at a sanctioned match, and it's a day ruiner but through coincidence I was able to get a reshoot. Whew!

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, I did not find it on a search. I am looking to get another front sight for an older K-Frame revolver and was curious if anyone knew the factory height. Conversely, do front sights have to be any particular height for the Weigand adjustable rear sights? I have a pair on one revolver than I am transferring over to the other. Thanks in advance.

From the 2009 revision of the rule book, not sure if this is the latest. "All rounds much travel a minimum 750 FPS. Competitiors whose ammunition does not make minimum velocity will be disqualified will be disqualified from the match(es) where the sub-standard ammunition was used."

This thread seems to come up rather frequently in different iterations. I'd suggest for any new action pistol shooters to read the rules for their sport, ask questions and, if you did something wrong, understand what happened. I'd also say NOT to bother posting about it here because you are going to get the same response for nearly everyone which is generally "You messed up, you should 'man up' and don't endanger me, I don't want to be shot while downrange, I have SOed for one million years", etc etc.

This thread brought a smile to my face.

Pete, I'm pretty sure I met you at the New England Regional IDPA Championships. Thanks again for your bullet samples. I found that to be a nice load but am trying to dominantly shoot plated bullets to get my health down and because I usually use Titegroup for powder which usually left smoky results when shooting lead. I know it's a "try and try again" sort of thing, I just think it's worth asking. In fact, I wouldn't have known about the Safariland grips I am using now if it weren't for a shooter overhearing my conversation with ANOTHER shooter about grips. A small piece of knowledge to one person can make a lot of difference to another.

I am a bass player and I think your observations are very interesting. I thought of another potentially coincidental observation regarding metal and USPSA. There is still a pretty pravelent pop culture association with metal and "extreme" things. Similarly, USPSA may seem to be wild, completely adrenaline fueled, and out of control to the observor. However, both require a lot of technical knowledge and a combination of mental concentration and also the ability to "exist in the moment" in order to be successful. Just as a shooter cannot be good merely from practicing technical drills without practice in applying it, so too will a musician who only knows scales, chords, and patterns fail without being able to completely experience the "present tense" that Mr. Enos talks about in his book.

I was curious if anyone here could possibly lend some knowledge. I've been looking for comfortable grips since I started shooting, and currently the most comfortable grips for my comically small hands for square butt K-Frames are the Rodgers / Safariland plastic grips. I know grips are important to consistent draw and shooting and Ed McGivern discusses the various anatomy of the grip in considerable detail. I like the profile of my current grips but feel they need to protrude out farther towards the trigger guard above the heel of the grip to help fill my hand. I have tried multiple Pachmayrs, Hogues, the Jerry Miculek grips, Uncle Mikes boot and normal grips, and various generics. Shaving down the stock Hogue monogrips does not do it for me. For now I'll be sticking with the Safariland grips because they are the closest to being right, but I was curious if anyone had a similar problem. I don't mind spending money for custom wood grips but am wary about shelling out that sort of dough and having a product that looks nice and is made of fancy wood but doesn't suit my needs.

I like how every thread has to turn into a rules pissing match. This stage looks fun. Coincidentally, I was just watching some Colt sponsored west coast challenge from 1994 on YouTube where the stage winners would win money, and there was no overall winner. One of the stages had mandatory "zig zagging" with small boxes that had to be stepped into. Rob Leatham was pulling off some awesome stuff in the video. I think having the chance to approach a stage a few ways can be fun and dynamic.

Let me play devil's advocate here. In people's local shooting communities, how many revolver shooters or shooters that own revolvers do people know who have definitively said that they would shoot USPSA Revolver Division IF (insert change here)? I'm having a little trouble understanding something here. The thread seems to be geared towards encouraging new revolver shooters to shoot USPSA; so this could either be individuals completely new to the community, with no background in action pistol sports, or existing shooters from other formats (ICORE, IDPA, etc). As far as I see it, there are two kinds of shooters in general. Some shooters primarly want to participate in local matches (and even regional matches) for recreation; they do not see themselves as being competitive, they do not intend on practicing sufficiently enough to be competitive, and admit that their primary motivation for shooting is because they enjoy the game's format and the social interaction at said matches. The second class of individuals are those who want to climb the ladders and be competitive. Perhaps an offshoot of this second group are people who shoot other formats who may use USPSA as trigger time for their discipline. I think most of the discussion here is geared towards the second group. If people want to shoot for fun and because they enjoy the format, or want to practice for something else, I don't think they're going to care that much about scoring. I've met tons of shooters in general who insist (perhaps they are lying) that they don't look at their scores and don't care. If such a recreational revolver crowd existed on the local shooting level, I don't think those individuals would care too much about format changes, 6 VS 8 shot, etc; they just want to show up and put holes in things. The people that do care are those who want to be competitive; this includes existing USPSA competitors who may be willing to shoot the revolver division. Until the general amount of revolver participation increases, I don't think modification of scoring would be that productive; capacity I suppose is up in the air. I don't really know a lot of people with 7 and 8 shot revolvers. If some revolver shooters including ones here like to compete, are we potentially losing them to other divisions due to lack of participation? I recently shot a Level 1 "State Championship" USPSA match which was fun, but if I had known I would be the only participant in my division, I would have either shot in another division entirely or not gone and saved my money for a closer match. Part of being a competitor is wanting to compete, and other divisions do not seem nearly as lacking as us when it comes to competitors of all different Class levels.

I am loading for 38 Special. When I sort by headstamp, I still run into variation with a hand primer; some primers seat perfectly, others do not go as far and I cannot "force" them any farther. I don't have a lot of military crimp 38 brass and I am inclined to dispose of it when I come across it; sometimes, if I load it by accident, the primer goes in a little funky and is distorted but still goes in and generally fires, but not something I'd like to bother with if I catch it.

I did not find this on the search, apologies if it has been covered. I am curently using a factory main spring with full tension so I have no worries about light strikes, but over the winter I am hoping to improve the action of my guns. I know people on this forum are large advocates of seating primers below flush. I currently load mixed brass on a single stage press with either a hand primer (just got a new one) or the press mounted. I notice that pocket depth seems to vary. Some primers load very easily, smoothly, and below flush. Others, especially with tight pockets like S&B, are harder and don't go as far down. I know the primer pocket reamers are generally to bring the pocket into spec and to remove crimp (someone inadvertantly gave me some military crimped 38 brass, what a pain!) but do these cut deep enough so that I can seat primers consistently, at the same below flush level, regardless of brass type? I plan on upgrading to a Dillon in the very near future but I could still do this on the single stage if I had to.

Does anyone have any idea when the scores will be posted?

I'll say this match was a really interesting experience for me.

On USPSA field courses, my K-frame with 38 +P loaded with Titegroup can get uncomfortably hot. I know where you're coming from.

I'll be there!

It was entirely my fault and I shot poorly anyway so its almost a moot point. What I don't get though (content for a new thread) is why people make up so many excuses about shooting poorly or having mistakes happen. Is admitting fault really that difficult? But yeah, the rounds were the same brass with the same bullet, the same OAL, the same primers. Would have taken 2 seconds to just separate them a bit better when I was loading them. Carelessness is costly!

3 boxes of appropriately power-factor making .38 special. 1 box of experimental loads with Trailboss in an identical box and stored adjacent. Stupid maneuver. Got my first DQ. Going to cull everything and start fresh now. Lesson learned.

I had the chance to discuss this issue and have my gun examined by an experienced revolver shooter (bones on this forum). For the curious minded, he informed me that I can get some shims as a quick fix, but that there was indeed something wrong. I think as he phrased it, the barrel of the yoke (the portion that slides in and out of the gun and the cylinder and ejector rod go over it) needed to be stretched out. He commented that at the rate the gun was going, I would not be a ble to cycle it in the near future if I didnt do anything about it. IDPA was a mess, could hardly shoot the gun on some occassions. I will most likely be having a qualified individual try to do this work and will try to either borrow a gun from a friend or buy a new one in the meantime. I guess the springs weren't a problem, it just seemed coincidental that I noticed right after the spring change.

Gracious thanks again to everyone that replied. There is no light visible between the end of the cylinder and the forcing cone initially, and when holding it back towards the blast shield there is a gap. I don't have any of these gauges you guys are mentioning so no way of taking a measurement. Extractor star is clean, I can't see any burrs. To my knowledge, my ejector rod is tight, but I dont have the tool and refuse to take pliers to them. I'm going to have to see if this continues with the factory springs back in the gun, and if it continues, I guess I'll be forced to send it to someone. I know everyone on here thinks very highly of Mr. Carmoney, and I may certainly be inclined to send him my gun at a later date - this is my first serious year for IDPA, and while I'm not very good, I need my gun to shoot a lot and have some matches coming up in August, so I would not be able to swing the turn-around time at present. I also kind of wanted to do well at an event with a relatively stock gun, I would hate to feel like I did well at an event simply from an equipment advantage.